Jake Gyllenhaal was one of the top contenders to play Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, and although the role went to Christian Bale, director Christopher Nolan called Gyllenhaal personally to tell him he didn’t get the role.
“To [Nolan’s] credit and to Baz [Luhrmann’s] credit, both of those directors called me personally to tell me [I didn’t get the role],” Jake Gyllenhaal said on The Howard Stern Show. “And they will tell you why. When you get that far, there’s a real legitimacy to you potentially getting something. It’s not like they’re going, ‘Oh, thanks so much.’ They are going, ‘I saw these aspects of you that I really wanted in the role and are wonderful, but in the end I ended up moving this way because it matches better with this person who is opposite you or would be opposite you. The color of their hair or their height, whatever it is!! There are all these non factors that really are the inexplicable stuff that if you start to pick away at it doesn’t work, it’s not healthy.”
Gyllenhaal continued, “To me, I just go: ‘Look at how far you got! So just try and keeping going.’ That’s what I felt. I remember getting a call from Christopher Nolan and thinking, ‘I just got a call personally from Christopher Nolan. That’s pretty cool. I’ve gotten pretty far. I went from them going they aren’t sure [about me] to a call saying they’re really thinking about you for this movie. So okay, I should keep going. I should just keep going.“
The actor clearly didn’t let the loss of the role get him down, but he might get another shot at the Dark Knight. With The Brave and the Bold just over the horizon, DC Studios will be casting a new Batman, and Gyllenhaal recently said that he’d still be interested. “Oh, man. That’s a classic. It’s an honor,” Gyllenhaal said. “Speaking of playing roles that other incredible actors have played in the past, to me actually roles that other incredible actors have played in the past, which, to me, actually, when I think about it, I’m going to play Iago in Othello with Denzel Washington, and I think about like the history of actors that have played that role throughout time, and I’m intimidated by that. So that’s the first level. That’s what I’m working on right now. But of course. It would be an honor always. Those types of things and those roles are classics.“
Jake Gyllenhaal can currently be seen starring in Road House on Prime Video. Our own Chris Bumbray reviewed the film, and while it was unfortunately more of a “mixed bag” than he had hoped, he still had fun with it. “It’s pretty entertaining, even if it’s not the absolute rollercoaster ride the trailer promised. It has some good fight sequences, but it’s short of action until about halfway in,” reads the review. “When it sticks to punch-ups, the movie is great, but when it spreads out into boat chases and explosions, the streaming nature of the film becomes more apparent. You start to wonder why they didn’t study the original movie closer, which proved car chases, explosions, and gun battles are ultimately unnecessary in a film about people getting kicked in the head.” You can check out the rest of Bumbray’s review right here.
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